On 2 May federal prosecutors in Brazil announce that they will seek R$155bn (US$44bn) in damages from BHP Billiton and Vale, which operate the iron miner Samarco as 50/50 joint venture. This follows one of Brazil’s biggest environmental disasters ever in November 2015 when a Samarco wastewater tailings dam burst. It among others left 17 people dead and over 500 homeless. The local state and federal governments have already settled with the two companies for US$3bn-6bn. In response to the announcement, BHP’s shares fell 6% in London and 9% in Australia. Vale’s shares fell 5.5% in Brazil. The two groups lost US$7.6bn in value. Considering Vale’s smaller market capitalization, it lost US$1.5bn in value compared to BHP’s loss of US$6.1bn. Yet as FT Lex pointed out, formally each “owns” half of the liability for the disaster.
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